


Responsibility Resumed

by pangodillO, Wholly_owned_subsidiary



Series: Newton's Third [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: BPD Cecil, Fluff, Multi, Non-Binary Cecil, Other, caretaker Earl, earl is a good boyfriend, non-sexual D/s, pre-Review, switch Cecil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:17:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6672106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pangodillO/pseuds/pangodillO, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wholly_owned_subsidiary/pseuds/Wholly_owned_subsidiary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of non-sexual fluff from before Carlos returns to Night Vale. Carlos is not good at consistent contact and Cecil is not good at coping. At least Earl is good at soothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Responsibility Resumed

The door was unlocked, which was always a bad sign, but at least they hadn’t left it open. Earl knocked anyway as he stuck his head in and looked around. He crossed the kitchen, checked the living room, certain to make noise at every step. He didn’t want to startle them. 

“Ce?” 

“Yeah.” It was less an answer and more an extended sigh. Earl followed it into the bedroom, a mess of piled clothes surrounding an unmade bed. 

He knelt beside the bed, then laid on his side, crossing his arms. “That can’t be very easy on your joints,” he said casually.

Somewhere in the dark under the bed, Cecil grunted. 

“Do you want help, precious?” Earl let the pet name indicate intention.

“Please?”

“Come out of there,” he said, and now the tone had shifted, _I’ve got you_ humming underneath the instruction. 

They wiggled out and pulled themself stiffly to their feet. 

“Hold out your hands.”

“S’fine--”

Earl was not wearing his glasses at the moment, but the stern look had the same effect. “Hold out your hands,” he said again.

They complied, with just the slightest huff. 

No shaking. “You dizzy? Light-headed?”

They shook their head.

“Come on.”

 

There had been three increasingly frantic texts, a phone call with no message, a second phone call with an “ugh, sorry, false alarm,” message that Earl didn’t buy for a second. 

He would not be so egotistical as to assume he knew them better than they knew themself. They had previously characterized the relationship that way, in the pre-Carlos past, when Cecil held him in such high esteem he felt he couldn’t possibly live up to it. 

But he’d known them for a long, long time. Knew they were likely completely failing self-care right now, hoping someone would notice, as though assistance didn’t count unless an outside source validated that it was necessary and offered it without request. They were probably surviving on coffee, sleeping as much as they could at odd hours, drinking on days off and hiding all of it under the weakest veneer of _fine_ anyone had ever inhabited. 

Earl hadn’t asked to come over, he’d just showed up. And now he was in this comfortable chair, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and Scouting book in hand while Cecil sliced the apples and cheese he’d brought.

“Fuck,” they hissed from the kitchen, and Earl heard the delicate patter of rice crackers hitting the floor. 

“Leave them,” Earl said evenly.

“It was like _half the box_ \--”

“Leave them,” Earl said again. “I’ll clean them up later. You need to eat first.” 

There was a buzz from the kitchen table, another clatter. Earl leaned far enough to see their look of blank panic. Their eyes flicked to Earl, then back to the phone, before they sidled towards the table. 

Earl watched them close their eyes, puff out air, turn over the phone and sigh at the screen. He stuck out his hand. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it. If it’s work, I’ll give it to you, if it’s Carlos I’ll let you decide if you want to see it, or if you want me to read it to you, or if you want to wait.”

They squeezed their eyes shut again as they set the phone in Earl’s hand, and returned a few moments later with a plate of cheese and crackers and apple, already a little calmer having had clear and simple instructions to follow.

Earl had carefully avoided this level of intimacy, especially while Carlos was away. He didn’t want to give Cecil any reason to feel guilty, or any opportunity to make poor choices in their distress. But their face was already softening, pupils dilating slightly, slipping into a space where all they had to do was Be Good and allow themself to be cared for, and Earl wished for a moment he’d been able to offer this sooner.

Earl set his book aside, smiled. “Thank you,” he said evenly. “Sit down.” 

Cecil looked down at the floor, to the side, and over Earl’s shoulder, as though hoping for more information, before settling almost apologetically into Earl’s lap, resting their head against his shoulder. 

“Sit up,” Earl said. “You need to eat something first.”

He felt their nose brush against his neck as they shook their head.

“Cecil,” he said, in a different, carefully controlled tone. 

They pushed themself away from his chest, eyes cast downward towards the plate. They had been more accepting in the past, more compliant. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“This isn’t _fair_ ,” they said, in half a whine. “I haven’t spoken to you in _months_. And you’re still here, you just--showed up to help, and I don’t even--”

“--deserve it?”

They stopped, blinked, watched Earl with wide and fretful eyes. 

“I’m here because I chose to be. Because I care about you, because I’m--responsible for you, in a way that is very important to me. So I’m here for myself as much as for you.” He picked up an apple slice, softened his voice. “Now, open your mouth, pet.” 

One side effect of this arrangement, their power dynamics seeping slowly into more and more of their everyday lives, was a problem of vocabulary. For example, watching Cecil’s mouth open, slow, almost hesitant, how their eyes closed when they took the tiniest bite, how their expression changed when they looked at him again, just that much sweeter, that much more trusting, could only be described as _erotic_. But in a way that settled warm and loving in Earl’s chest--and nowhere else. He would think on it later, before he fell asleep, but not in the shower with his hand around his cock. Was there a term for that? 

Didn’t matter right now. They had opened their mouth unprompted, accepted another, slightly larger bite, and a piece of cheese after that, and then a rice cracker. Earl laid a piece of cheese over an apple, bit off half, and offered the second half to Cecil. 

There was a buzz, and Earl pulled Cecil’s phone out of his pocket. They seemed startled at the sound, like someone being shaken from a light and comfortable doze. It was Abby, and she didn’t need anything that couldn’t wait. He put it back and shook his head once. 

They worked their way slowly through the plate, and Earl watched Cecil slip farther and farther into the safe and drifting place. Earl set the plate on the floor at his feet--he couldn’t reach any farther without shifting them off his lap--and didn’t stop them when they rested their head against his shoulder again.

“How long has it been?” Earl asked.

“Two days,” they said, without hesitation. “He said he would try to call every night.”

Earl nodded, thoughtful, resisting the urge to rock them in his arms. That might be too intimate, too much like their previous relationship; it was slightly harder to predict their needs anymore. “Have you been leaving the house? With the league, or to see Janice?”

“It doesn’t matter.” They turned and rubbed their nose into his shoulder. “They’d be better off if I wasn’t here.”

Earl pinched them, very lightly, on their upper arm. Just enough to notice; today was not a day to strictness. “People love you.” _I love you_ , he did not say. “You know if anything happened to you--”

“It wouldn’t matter. No one actually needs me.” _No one_ meant _Carlos_ meant _the entire universe_ , and there was no separation for Cecil, they all folded together like the pages of an old letter. “He’s already gone. He’s so gone he forgot to tell me. Probably forgot all about me.”

“I doubt that’s true,” Earl said. “Maybe he’s busy, or maybe it’s a problem of time. I don’t think he’s leaving you.” 

Cecil nodded, not in agreement but to register comprehension, and their body was tense. They were quiet for a second, each getting something from the other--Cecil, knowing there was still someone who was there for them, and Earl knowing he could still help, that Cecil would still benefit from his attention. 

“Will you stay?” Cecil asked, and their voice was quiet, their breath tickling his neck.

Earl nodded, just slightly, so as not to dislodge them. “I’ll stay.”


End file.
